160,000 Mile TVR Chimaera
Discussion
Well almost:
I've owned a few different cars but always wanted a TVR, I found this car in January and it was the cheapest Chimaera for sale by a fair margin. It's done a lot of miles but mechanically it is decent having had a recent chassis refurbishment, and an engine rebuild by JE developments at 152,000 miles.
I don't have many pictures of the outside of the car but here's a couple to give you an idea:
The car does have a fair few issues being as cheap as it was, the top needs replacing really and the interior is pretty scruffy.
Someone has replaced the dash with what looks like a piece of hardboard
and the wood around the radio is cracked. The seats/leather are in quite a poor state especially the drivers seat. The car actually has the full hide option which I'm lead to believe is fairly rare?
The engine runs very well. I'm not entirely sure of the spec of the rebuild but it certainly pulls well, there is a dyno plot in the folder that came with the car that says 265bhp and 305 lbft which I think are fairly good numbers for this engine (4.6 RV8). Also it made 200lbft at idle
I picked the car up a few weeks ago and drove it around 70 miles home, it handled that fine but I did note some issues:
-Engine/gearbox mounts need looking at
-Investigate ticking noise from engine
-Wipers/washers are rubbish!
-Slight knock from nearside front suspension
-Differential whines (noted on test drive)
-Rear tyres getting low
I got the car home and drove it around for about a week; I absolutely love driving this thing even with the issues it has! Never owned/driven a V8 car before this and the noise and powerband are fantastic. It probably feels quicker than it is due to the noise but it feels significantly faster than my old MR2 turbo.
After a couple of days I noticed a few more issues on the car:
-Exhaust seems to be hanging low on one side
-Significant amount of oil leaking from the sump
-Oil leaking from the differential
I wasn't happy driving the car around with these issues so I set about investigating the causes. When I had a look at the oil leak there was oil all over the sump and gearbox, on closer inspection the sump was leaking from several places.
The differential was also leaking from the main seal (no pic of that). The gearbox mounts had seen better days:
When I had a look at the exhaust I found a bizarre botch job:
And all the bolts holding the center section on were completely loose (2 had fallen out already)! The center mounts had completely gone and were falling apart
I ordered a load of parts from Racetech and set about fixing all the problems. The rear exhaust mount came off first:
I've seen a lot of botch jobs having owned a few sheddy performance cars over the years but silicone hose holding an exhaust on is a new one for me
That rubbish got replaced with a new mount and bush:
Then the center mounts were replaced:
That's all for now, the car is currently in bits in my garage! More updates later today hopefully.
I've owned a few different cars but always wanted a TVR, I found this car in January and it was the cheapest Chimaera for sale by a fair margin. It's done a lot of miles but mechanically it is decent having had a recent chassis refurbishment, and an engine rebuild by JE developments at 152,000 miles.
I don't have many pictures of the outside of the car but here's a couple to give you an idea:
The car does have a fair few issues being as cheap as it was, the top needs replacing really and the interior is pretty scruffy.
Someone has replaced the dash with what looks like a piece of hardboard
and the wood around the radio is cracked. The seats/leather are in quite a poor state especially the drivers seat. The car actually has the full hide option which I'm lead to believe is fairly rare? The engine runs very well. I'm not entirely sure of the spec of the rebuild but it certainly pulls well, there is a dyno plot in the folder that came with the car that says 265bhp and 305 lbft which I think are fairly good numbers for this engine (4.6 RV8). Also it made 200lbft at idle
I picked the car up a few weeks ago and drove it around 70 miles home, it handled that fine but I did note some issues:
-Engine/gearbox mounts need looking at
-Investigate ticking noise from engine
-Wipers/washers are rubbish!
-Slight knock from nearside front suspension
-Differential whines (noted on test drive)
-Rear tyres getting low
I got the car home and drove it around for about a week; I absolutely love driving this thing even with the issues it has! Never owned/driven a V8 car before this and the noise and powerband are fantastic. It probably feels quicker than it is due to the noise but it feels significantly faster than my old MR2 turbo.
After a couple of days I noticed a few more issues on the car:
-Exhaust seems to be hanging low on one side
-Significant amount of oil leaking from the sump
-Oil leaking from the differential
I wasn't happy driving the car around with these issues so I set about investigating the causes. When I had a look at the oil leak there was oil all over the sump and gearbox, on closer inspection the sump was leaking from several places.
The differential was also leaking from the main seal (no pic of that). The gearbox mounts had seen better days:
When I had a look at the exhaust I found a bizarre botch job:
And all the bolts holding the center section on were completely loose (2 had fallen out already)! The center mounts had completely gone and were falling apart
I ordered a load of parts from Racetech and set about fixing all the problems. The rear exhaust mount came off first:
I've seen a lot of botch jobs having owned a few sheddy performance cars over the years but silicone hose holding an exhaust on is a new one for me
That rubbish got replaced with a new mount and bush:
Then the center mounts were replaced:
That's all for now, the car is currently in bits in my garage! More updates later today hopefully.
Edited by Shed TVR on Thursday 22 February 14:25
scottos said:
Photos work for me, you can download a plug in to your browser to show all photos.
Very brave purchase, looks great and not bad at all considering! I'm sure once its had the once over and a bit of TLC youll have some more trouble free motoring!
Which one are you using? Most of them add affiliate links and send your browsing data elsewhere..Very brave purchase, looks great and not bad at all considering! I'm sure once its had the once over and a bit of TLC youll have some more trouble free motoring!
Check out "Photobucket Embedded Image Fix":
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/photobuc...
This one works very well for me. Occasionally requires a page refresh but seems to do the trick.
Car looks great OP, I must admit to a growing interest in getting one of these as a project car... So many things could be improved and modified!
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/photobuc...
This one works very well for me. Occasionally requires a page refresh but seems to do the trick.
Car looks great OP, I must admit to a growing interest in getting one of these as a project car... So many things could be improved and modified!
shalmaneser said:
Check out "Photobucket Embedded Image Fix":
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/photobuc...
This one works very well for me. Occasionally requires a page refresh but seems to do the trick.
Car looks great OP, I must admit to a growing interest in getting one of these as a project car... So many things could be improved and modified!
Excellent.....that works a treat!https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/photobuc...
This one works very well for me. Occasionally requires a page refresh but seems to do the trick.
Car looks great OP, I must admit to a growing interest in getting one of these as a project car... So many things could be improved and modified!
Nice motor OP. If I had a garage and a spare few quid this is what I'd do in my spare time. I sadly have neither at the moment.
scottos said:
Photos work for me, you can download a plug in to your browser to show all photos.
Very brave purchase, looks great and not bad at all considering! I'm sure once its had the once over and a bit of TLC youll have some more trouble free motoring!
Thanks, it was always going to be a bit of a risk but I'm hoping it pays off. Very brave purchase, looks great and not bad at all considering! I'm sure once its had the once over and a bit of TLC youll have some more trouble free motoring!
shalmaneser said:
Car looks great OP, I must admit to a growing interest in getting one of these as a project car... So many things could be improved and modified!
I'd say go for it, I can't think of many more exciting cars at this price point 
Worth bearing in mind though these have fairly terrible chassis rigidity so never going to be the last word in handling or precision dave_s13 said:
Nice motor OP. If I had a garage and a spare few quid this is what I'd do in my spare time. I sadly have neither at the moment.
Thanks, it's a shame you don't have the time. To be fair it's not much fun in this weather though, my garage is freezing today!OK so I've made a bit more progress on the car. After getting the exhaust off and changing the mounts I decided to have a go at the wipers, mainly just to get off the garage floor as I was a bit cold lol.
I'd ordered a replacement wiper arm as one of them was very loose, as well as new wiper blades and an up-rated washer jet kit. These are the original washer jets which are a horrible design; it's just a piece of hose with some holes in it
to add to this mine were split in half also.
This was what I found when I looked at the mounting of the loose arm:
Oh dear
It looks like someone forced an imperial nut onto the metric thread, stripped it, then put another nut on top of the nut. Deciding this wasn't enough they then drilled through the wiper arm and put a bolt through the entire thing, quality botch
Anyway I did my best to sort that mess out; I ended up putting a die down the threads and managed to get an M8 nut on there which seems to hold OK. New wiper blades, wiper arm and washer jets fitted, hopefully I'll actually be able to see something in the rain now!
Next I changed the engine mounts, not going to lie this was a horrible job and took me a while. Here's the old ones vs the new ones:
After that I replaced the gearbox mounts:
Then I had a look at the leaking sump. I drained the oil and removed the sump to try and see why it was leaking. The sump had taken a knock on the bottom at some point, probably from a speed bump. When I removed it I was a bit alarmed to find that it appeared to be sealed with bathroom sealant
don't think it is oil resistant silicone as it's clear. I'm hoping this was done by a previous owner and not the engine builder as that would not bode well for the rest of the engine!Here's a picture anyway, you can't see the sealant very well. There were several spots where oil had clearly been leaking past the silicone:
Unfortunately once I cleaned up the sealing surface I found a hairline crack:
Given that a new sump costs around £300 for these I thought I'd try to weld up the crack for now and hope that it seals OK. Time will tell if it's worked or not. Here's a terrible picture of the sump after it was welded and cleaned up
I'm not the world's greatest welder by a long way but hopefully the fix is good enough. The sump went back on with a proper gasket, and a new oil filter. There's probably a better way to do it but I found it a lot easier to fit with the gasket cable tied on initially
Another rubbish photo:
That's all for now, hopefully I will have re-sealed the diff cover and replaced the rear diff mounting bush by the end of today. I'll leave you with the hilarious first page of the owners manual
Edited by Shed TVR on Thursday 22 February 15:16
darkyoung1000 said:
Superb stuff. A you're a brave man! Good work on rescuing a superb car - given the bodges you've uncovered, looks like it might not have lasted much longer....
How do the outriggers on the chassis look?
How do the outriggers on the chassis look?
yonex said:
Awesome. The car looks great!
Thank you both The car was actually owned by a member on here a few years ago who had put a lot of effort into maintaining it, there's a thread about it here not sure if pwd95 is still active on here?Outriggers look OK, no obvious rust from underneath. It's difficult to examine them properly without the body off, I may get a cheap boroscope at some point to try and have a look inside.
I didn't have any luck getting the diff cover off today, so I thought I'd post some pictures of my car history instead:
Citroen Saxo 1.4, slow but fun!
Renaultsport Clio 172 cup
Saab 9-3 2.8t
Toyota MR2 Turbo Rev4
More updates on the TVR tomorrow hopefully.
Very interesting read; a pal years ago had an S3 2.9 that I 'looked after' for a while and got a lot of problems sorted for him ( he was absolutely not a petrolhead and did not even know what a ratchet spanner was !!
It was eventually returned to him, after having about £4000 spent on it at a local TVR specialist, and it was amazing to drive even with the Ford 2.9V6. Baring in mind I had a 1970 Lotus Elan S4DHC at the time, going from the Elan into the TVR was a complete contrast !!
Two different approaches to sports car design and performance !! ie Brute power versus 'performance enhanced by lightness'.
I always recall getting wheelspin in 3rd in the TVR in the wet, something I never got in the Elan in the 12 or so years that I had it !
I cannot comprehend those 'repairs' on your car...I have never seen anything like that before...!!
Keep up the photos and the posts, I shall be following with interest.
PS If you don't already, I would fit a) a battery isolator switch, preferably hidden as an anti theft and more importantly safety item, and b) always have a fire extinguisher fitted inside the car that is easy to access.... Any fibreglass car should have one !!
It was eventually returned to him, after having about £4000 spent on it at a local TVR specialist, and it was amazing to drive even with the Ford 2.9V6. Baring in mind I had a 1970 Lotus Elan S4DHC at the time, going from the Elan into the TVR was a complete contrast !!
Two different approaches to sports car design and performance !! ie Brute power versus 'performance enhanced by lightness'.
I always recall getting wheelspin in 3rd in the TVR in the wet, something I never got in the Elan in the 12 or so years that I had it !
I cannot comprehend those 'repairs' on your car...I have never seen anything like that before...!!
Keep up the photos and the posts, I shall be following with interest.
PS If you don't already, I would fit a) a battery isolator switch, preferably hidden as an anti theft and more importantly safety item, and b) always have a fire extinguisher fitted inside the car that is easy to access.... Any fibreglass car should have one !!
Interesting purchase, OP
That said, if a bloke can drive one all the way to Latin America and only need the clutch changed along the way, they can't be THAT bad, can they?....
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-43056769
It's not the same car, is it?
That said, if a bloke can drive one all the way to Latin America and only need the clutch changed along the way, they can't be THAT bad, can they?....
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-43056769
It's not the same car, is it?
Paul S4 said:
Very interesting read; a pal years ago had an S3 2.9 that I 'looked after' for a while and got a lot of problems sorted for him ( he was absolutely not a petrolhead and did not even know what a ratchet spanner was !!
It was eventually returned to him, after having about £4000 spent on it at a local TVR specialist, and it was amazing to drive even with the Ford 2.9V6. Baring in mind I had a 1970 Lotus Elan S4DHC at the time, going from the Elan into the TVR was a complete contrast !!
Two different approaches to sports car design and performance !! ie Brute power versus 'performance enhanced by lightness'.
I always recall getting wheelspin in 3rd in the TVR in the wet, something I never got in the Elan in the 12 or so years that I had it !
I cannot comprehend those 'repairs' on your car...I have never seen anything like that before...!!
Keep up the photos and the posts, I shall be following with interest.
PS If you don't already, I would fit a) a battery isolator switch, preferably hidden as an anti theft and more importantly safety item, and b) always have a fire extinguisher fitted inside the car that is easy to access.... Any fibreglass car should have one !!
I can confirm that mine also spins in 3rd in the wet It was eventually returned to him, after having about £4000 spent on it at a local TVR specialist, and it was amazing to drive even with the Ford 2.9V6. Baring in mind I had a 1970 Lotus Elan S4DHC at the time, going from the Elan into the TVR was a complete contrast !!
Two different approaches to sports car design and performance !! ie Brute power versus 'performance enhanced by lightness'.
I always recall getting wheelspin in 3rd in the TVR in the wet, something I never got in the Elan in the 12 or so years that I had it !
I cannot comprehend those 'repairs' on your car...I have never seen anything like that before...!!
Keep up the photos and the posts, I shall be following with interest.
PS If you don't already, I would fit a) a battery isolator switch, preferably hidden as an anti theft and more importantly safety item, and b) always have a fire extinguisher fitted inside the car that is easy to access.... Any fibreglass car should have one !!
my rear tyres are not the best though. Never owned a Lotus but would love to have one, unfortunately I think I'm priced out of most of them 
Very good point about the fire extinguisher and battery isolator; it's not something I'd considered. I'll definitely be fitting both of those asap.
RC1807 said:
Interesting purchase, OP
That said, if a bloke can drive one all the way to Latin America and only need the clutch changed along the way, they can't be THAT bad, can they?....
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-43056769
It's not the same car, is it? wink
Hah I did read that story last week, I'm amazed they didn't have more issues! Wonder how many miles that car is on?That said, if a bloke can drive one all the way to Latin America and only need the clutch changed along the way, they can't be THAT bad, can they?....
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-43056769
It's not the same car, is it? wink
Thanks for all the replies, it's motivating me to keep going
I managed to get the diff cover off finally, really I should have removed the diff completely but never mind. Some 'creative' methods were needed:
I don't think this had ever been off judging by how stuck it was; all of the dowels were rusted solid. The diff looked OK inside with no obvious signs of wear. This car has the hydratrak diff which was a rare factory option, it's a viscous locking diff which is generally considered a bit rubbish
It's also a self sealed unit which means I can't split it open without losing all the viscous fluid.I got both sealing surfaces cleaned up:
Then it went back together with some new sealant:
I got a bit paranoid and put way too much sealant around the drain plug
I should really have ordered a new one but never mind. I still have a few bits to put back together but I'm hoping to have the car up and running again by the end of today. More updates soon. Shed TVR said:
Hah I did read that story last week, I'm amazed they didn't have more issues! Wonder how many miles that car is on?
Could ask him? https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/profile.asp?h=...
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